The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight is the 2008 sequel to Batman Begins. Batman works with James Gordon and Harvey Dent to sort out Gotham. But a new threat appears in the form of The Joker who terrorizes Gotham City and creates an new enemy in Dent. Plot In Gotham City, the Joker robs a mob bank with his accomplices, whom he tricks into killing one another, ultimately killing the last one himself. While investigating the robbery, Batman and Lieutenant James Gordon contemplate including new district attorney Harvey Dent in their plan to eradicate the mob. However, Batman wonders if Dent can be trusted. Wayne runs into Rachel Dawes and Dent, who are dating, and after talking to Dent, he realizes Dent's sincerity and decides to host a fundraiser for him. Mob bosses Sal Maroni, Gambol, and the Chechen meet with other underworld gangsters to discuss both Batman and Dent, who have been cracking down on the mobster's operations. Lau, a Chinese mafia accountant, informs them that he has hidden their money and fled to Hong Kong in an attempt to preempt Gordon's plan to seize the mobsters' funds and hide from Dent's jurisdiction. The Joker appears and offers to kill Batman for half of the mafia's money, but they flatly refuse and Gambol places a bounty on the Joker's head. Not long after, the Joker kills Gambol and takes control of his men. In Hong Kong, Batman captures Lau using a skyhook, and delivers him to the Gotham City police, where Lau agrees to testify against the mob. Dent and Gordon arrest the mob, and in retaliation the Joker issues an ultimatum to Gotham: people will die each day until Batman reveals his identity. When Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb and the judge presiding over the mob trials are killed, the public readily blames Batman, prompting Wayne to decide to reveal his identity. Before Bruce can turn himself in, Dent holds a press conference to try and persuade the public not to sell Batman out just because of one terrorist. However the public, though grateful for everything Batman has done for the city, insists that things have now reached a point where Batman must make the sacrifice, so Dent announces that he himself is Batman and is arrested as part of a plan to draw the Joker out of hiding. The Joker attempts to ambush the police convoy carrying Dent, but Batman and Gordon intervene and capture him. In recognition of his actions, Gordon is appointed the new police commissioner. Later that night, Dent and Dawes disappear. At the police station, Batman interrogates the Joker, who reveals that Dent's and Dawes' police escorts were corrupt police and have placed them in warehouses rigged with explosives on opposite sides of the city—far enough apart so that Batman cannot save them both. Batman leaves to save Dawes, while Gordon and the police head after Dent. With the aid of a smuggled bomb, the Joker escapes police custody with Lau. Batman arrives, but finds Dent instead of Dawes. Batman successfully saves Dent, but the ensuing explosion disfigures Dent's face. Gordon arrives at Dawes' location too late, and she perishes when the bomb detonates. Unable to cope with this new level of chaos, Maroni goes to Gordon and offers him the Joker's location. Aboard a cargo ship, the Joker burns Lau to death atop a pile of half the mob's money, and has the Chechen killed before taking control of his men. Meanwhile, an M&A lawyer working as a consultant to Wayne Enterprises, Coleman Reese, finds out Batman's identity and after failing to blackmail the company, decides to go public. However, realizing that he does what he does only because of Batman, the Joker changes his mind about revealing Batman's identity and issues a public ultimatum: either Reese is killed within the hour, or he will blow up a hospital. When attempts on Reese's life are foiled, the Joker goes to the evacuated hospital, disguised as a nurse, and frees Dent from his restraints, convincing him to exact revenge on the people whose corruption led to Dawes' death. Dent begins by flipping a coin to decide if he should kill the Joker, and spares him. The Joker destroys the hospital on his way out, and then escapes with a hijacked bus full of hospital patients. Out of the hospital, Dent goes on a personal vendetta, confronting Maroni and the corrupt cops one by one and flipping his coin to decide their fates. Now with complete control over the Gotham mob, the Joker announces to the public that anyone left in Gotham at nightfall will be subject to his rule. With the bridges and tunnels out of the city closed due to a warning by the Joker, authorities begin evacuating people by ferry. The Joker has explosives placed on two of the ferries—one ferry with convicts, who were evacuated in an effort to keep the Joker from freeing them, and the other with civilians—telling the passengers the only way to save themselves is to trigger the explosives on the other ferry; otherwise, he will destroy both at midnight. Batman locates the Joker and the hostages he has taken. Realizing the Joker has disguised the hostages as his own men, Batman is forced to attack both Gordon's SWAT team and the Joker's henchmen to save the real hostages. The Joker's plan to destroy the ferries fails after the passengers on both decide not to destroy each other. Batman finds the Joker, and after a brief fight, is able to subdue him, preventing him from destroying both ferries. When Batman refuses to kill the Joker, the Joker acknowledges that Batman is truly incorruptible, but that Dent was not, and that he has unleashed Dent upon the city. Leaving the Joker for the SWAT team, Batman searches for Dent. At the remains of the building where Dawes died, Batman finds Dent holding Gordon and his family at gunpoint. Dent judges the innocence of Batman, himself, and Gordon's son through three coin tosses. As the result of the first two flips, he shoots Batman in the abdomen and spares himself. Before Dent can determine the boy's fate, Batman, who was wearing body armor, tackles him over the side of the building. Gordon's son is saved, but Dent and Batman fall to the ground below resulting in Dent's death. Knowing that the citizens of Gotham will lose hope and all morale if Dent's rampage becomes public news, Batman convinces Gordon to hold him responsible for the murders. Images are shown of Gordon delivering the eulogy at Dent's funeral and smashing the Bat-Signal. Police swarm the building, and Batman flees as Gordon and his son watch. Cast *Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman *Heath Ledger as The Joker *Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent/Two-Face *Gary Oldman as James Gordon *Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes *Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth *Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox *Colin McFarlane as Gillian B. Loeb *Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni *Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow *Nestor Carbonell as Mayor Anthony Garcia *Chin Han as Mr. Lau *Michael Jai White as Gambol *Ritchie Coster as The Chechen *Sarah Jayne Dunn as Sal Maroni's Mistress Production history Before the release of Batman Begins, screenwriter David S. Goyer had written a treatment for two sequels, introducing the Joker and Harvey Dent. On July 31, 2006, Warner Bros. Pictures officially announced the initiation of production for the sequel, titled The Dark Knight. The title makes The Dark Knight the first live-action Batman film without the word Batman in its title. Christian Bale noted, "This take on Batman of mine and Chris' is very different from any of the others and everything else always had Batman in the title. Christopher Nolan described the sequel's theme as escalation, continuing how Batman Begins ended, with "things having to get worse before they get better. Nolan indicated that The Dark Knight would also continue the themes that Batman Begins had, such as justice vs. revenge and Bruce Wayne's father issues, while Jonathan Nolan has indicated that the film will show more of Batman as a detective.The Dark Knight is also based of The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. The story was co-written by Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David S. Goyer, while the Nolan brothers took turns each month to revise the screenplay. The Dark Knight's interpretation of the Joker is based primarily on the character's first two appearances in the Batman comics, as well as Alan Moore's one-shot comic book Batman: The Killing Joke, which was given to Heath Ledger in order to prepare for his role. Jerry Robinson, one of the co-creators of the basic concept for the Joker in the comics, is involved as a consultant on the portrayal of the character.The Nolan brothers were highly secretive, with Christopher Nolan refusing to let Ledger leave his house with a copy of the script. In October 2006, film location manager Robin Higgs visited Liverpool to scout locations, mainly along the city's waterfront, for filming The Dark Knight. Other scouted locations included Yorkshire, Glasgow, and parts of London. Producer Charles Roven originally stated in August 2006 that principal photography would begin in March 2007,but filming was pushed back to start in April. For its IMAX release, Nolan had four major action sequences, including the Joker's introduction, shot in the format. Nolan admitted he wished he could have shot the entire film in IMAX, and felt, "I figured if you could take an IMAX camera to Mount Everest or outer space, you could use it in a feature movie. Warner Bros. chose Chicago as a filming location with a plan to film there for 13 weeks, due to Nolan having had a "truly remarkable experience" filming there for part of Batman Begins. The crew shot there from April 18-24 2007 for the film's prologue involving the Joker. The crew returned to shoot there from June 9 2007 to early September. Production of The Dark Knight in Chicago will generate $45 million in the city's economy and create thousands of jobs. According to actor Michael Caine, the film will also be shot in London, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Hong Kong. Hong Kong's walled city of Kowloon had been an influence on the Narrows in Batman Begins. In an October 2006 interview, composer Hans Zimmer confirmed he and James Newton Howard would be returning to score The Dark Knight, teaming up as they did on Batman Begins. Zimmer said that the main Batman theme was purposely introduced at the end of Batman Begins and be fleshed out in the sequel as the character develops. On January 22 2008, Heath Ledger, who played the Joker, died of an accidental overdose. Category:The Dark Knight 6